Subtle Lumination
by islandofhopex
Summary: For something so apparently nonexistent, an aura can be very telling. Ty Lee-centric, but with appearances from Azula, Zuko, Mai, Sokka, Katara, Aang, Toph, Ursa, and Ozai.


**Author's Note:**

I cannot see auras myself, but I did research them before writing this, so hopefully I'm not too off.

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><p>Ty Lee always noticed things. It wasn't a bad thing, at first. When she was little, speaking of seemingly invisible colors was considered cute, normal. But when she was a noble child in the Royal Fire Academy for Girls who still insisted that her mother had a silver aura (<em>It's not bad, Mom. I mean, silver could mean you're dyslusied, but maybe yours is just silver because you're always pregnant…)<em>,it wasn't cute anymore.

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Ty Lee's mother tried giving one of her sisters the job of "getting rid of this aura business," but Ty Lee wouldn't budge. She liked reading people, especially the ones with more complicated auras. Her friend—at least she hoped she was her friend—named Princess Azula had an empowering turquoise aura. Then it grew into an orange aura, which meant too much power. Ty Lee told Azula about this once, and the princess had laughed (_There's no such thing as too much power._) After that, Ty Lee was too nervous to talk to Azula about her auras, especially when the princess' grew into a hateful black.

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By the time Azula grudgingly introduced Ty Lee to her brother, Prince Zuko, everyone had given up on bringing Ty Lee back to Earth. Still, the boy didn't exactly take kindly to being told that his aura was colored an angry, pained sulfur. But when Azula began to tease him about this, Ty Lee took pity on him and tried to remind him that auras could always change. At that point, Zuko was too fed up to care.

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Ty Lee liked reading the aura of her best friend, Mai, more than anything else. Ty Lee supposed she should be able to read Mai perfectly without effort—that was what her sisters could do with _their_ best friends, anyway—but Mai was more complicated than that. When she first read Mai's aura, it was a practical, albeit unsettled brown. But over the years, it turned into a dark, depressing gray. Ty Lee watched the girl's face carefully when she spoke of this, but she couldn't find a flicker of surprise. However, she did earn a slight smile when she confessed that Mai's mother had a disgustingly materialistic red around her.

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_Your aura is deeply turquoise, which is good—it means you're energetic and organized_, she rambled on to that cute Water Tribe boy one day. He didn't seem to be listening, but Ty Lee told herself that that was just because he was focused on fighting her. When she moved on to his Waterbending sister, she decided to try her instead, as a form of distraction (_It's green, meaning empathy and balance_), but all she got was sarcasm (_Wow, never could've guessed that, Circus Freak._)

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When Ty Lee finally met the famous Avatar, she expected to find a thoughtful, unattached aura surrounding him, but none was present. Instead, she found a loving, balanced pink. She said this with an earnestly impressed tone (_It took me years to get there myself!_), but he seemed offended, something fueled even further by his blind friend's laughter.

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Azula's mother had always been one of Ty Lee's favorite people in the royal family; she knew Azula resented this, but she couldn't help but wish that her own mother could be as kind and caring as Ursa. So naturally, when it came time that Azula's parents hardly spoke and visiting a cheerful place like Ember Island was unthinkable, Ursa's aura began to worry her. Ironically, Ursa had always shared an orange aura with her daughter (_But hers was a more warm and inspiring shade._), but all of a sudden, Ursa's aura became white. At first, Ty Lee worried that the woman was ill, but then she realized that it didn't mean illness for her—it meant denial. When she was gone and Zuko was crying, Ty Lee wondered if she should have said something.

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One of the most stable auras Ty Lee ever saw was that of Fire Lord Ozai. It was always either a bright red or an authoritative, seeking purple. Ty Lee didn't think anything could unhinge that man. That is, until Avatar Aang so famously stripped him of his bending. Then she knew without even visiting him in prison that he had a black one to match his daughter's.

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For the first chunk of her life, Ty Lee hated reading her own aura. It wasn't that it screamed danger, but it seemed perpetually stuck as yellow—optimistic, thoughtful, joyful… nothing meaningful, nothing that stood out. Whenever she read it, it was a painful reminder of how uselessly she was living her life. Then she had the guts to run away and make a name for herself in the circus, and it actually _worked_. She grew into a loving, balanced, and selfless pink. But Azula came by, and despite the white aura being with her brought on, could she really turn away from _Azula_? Only when the war ended and she was free to do whatever she wanted—jump on tightropes, swim until she reached the Southern Water Tribe, ask the Avatar for a ride on his glider—did she finally get an enlightened, independent gold.


End file.
